Sunday, January 25, 2009

Notebook One - Where it all began....

I no longer recall why I decided to buy a notebook and start copying recipes. But I'm glad I did.

I guess I must have needed some writing paper, as this 80 page notebook has a 2 page table of contents, and 64 pages of recipes.

I started out this book with recipes from my Mom, from my friends Mom's (mostly sweets), and some of the few dishes that my boyfriend at the time would eat. Then around page 32 I discovered vegetarian magazines, which fills out the rest of the book. My boyfriend was horrified, as he lived by some sort of "If there's no meat, I don't want to eat" code. For a couple of years most of the veggie recipes went untried. But then we broke up and that was that.

It wasn't easy to pick a new recipe to make from Book 1, even though there's got to be at least 30 recipes I haven't tried yet. Risotto? Cinnamon buns? Ooooh - Watermelon Margaritas! But because we'd scored some really nice and flavorful tomatos, I chose Mexican Gazpacho.

I didn't write down where this came from - who knew 10 years later I'd have a food blog? Who even knew what a blog was? but I think it was a vegetarian magazine. The soup itself gets an A. Very healthy, no fat, and fast to make. Just finely chop (or chuck in a food processor like I did) your ingredients, mix them together and you're ready to go. I loved the freshness and the zing from the vinegar and hot sauce. I had it for lunch 4 days in a row.

In a large non-reactive bowl combine all the ingredients and mix well. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, about 8 hours. To serve, mix again and ladle into bowls. OR puree half of the mixture in a food processor, mix into the remaining gazpacho and serve.

Sara, I am so impressed with your notebooks and intrigued as well. Your hand writing is gorgeous. Not to mention this recipe sounds fantastic. Too bad all I can get tomato wise here right now are grainy and tasteless. But I'm saving it for my Early Girls!

Gazpacho!! I really like gazpacho, much more than my family. It was one of the first recipes I posted/talked about last summer. This looks great - I bet a good canned tomato (no citric acid, please!) would stand in very well right now. Well, maybe not today - it snowed all day. BTW, you're handwriting is great! You are definately writing the invitations to my next wedding!

WOW!! Reading my comment makes it sound like the gazpacho more than I like my family. I'm sure the gazpacho is really good, but I'm sure I would like my family more than the gazpacho. What I meant to say was I like gazpacho more than my family likes gazpacho.